1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to secure services suitable for the use, for example, over a communications network. In particular, it concerns identification codes for users of such services.
2. Description of Related Art
Related inventions are described and claimed in our copending application EP00302045.0.
Increasingly, face-to-face transactions between customers and service providers are being a replaced by transactions carried out remotely over a communications network. This provides ease of access for the customer, and reduced costs for the service operator. For example, in the case of banking services, there has been to a rapid rise in Internet banking and in a telephone banking operations. Internet banking in particular, offers the possibility of large cost savings, since customer transactions can be fully automated. Currently, telephone banking is implemented using human operators and a call centre. It would be desirable to automate telephone banking using interactive voice response (IVR) technology. One potential barrier to doing so, is the need for secure identification of customers. Conventionally, for Internet banking using a text interface, the customer identifies themselves using an account number and PIN. However, using speech recognition systems, recognition accuracy for long strings of numbers is relatively poor. Accordingly, an alternative form of identification is required.